


Can We Keep It

by johnllauren



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bunnies, Death, M/M, a lot of fluff pretty much, also it ends happily i promise, alternate universe - human names used, no humans die though don't worry, pet adoption, pet death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnllauren/pseuds/johnllauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't take long for Alfred F. Jones to fall in love with the small animal on the front steps of their apartment building. Arthur should've known he was going to want to keep it. Whatever 'it' happens to be, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can We Keep It

“Can we keep it?” 

Arthur should’ve expected this question, especially after the (at least) ten-second long “aww” that escaped his boyfriend’s mouth. 

“Alfred, I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.” 

“It’s a bunny and it’s adorable! But I think it’s hurt…” Alfred says, taking a few steps back to let Arthur look at whatever he’s cooing about.

Alfred’s right; it most certainly is a bunny. A tiny, brown, wild bunny lying on its side. It’s probably hurt or sick or something of the sort, seeing as it didn’t move even when Alfred was bent over it. 

“It might be carrying some sort of disease.” Arthur points out.

His boyfriend pouts, pulling those puppy eyes that Arthur can never say no to. “We have to take him in and nurse him back to health!” 

“We found him on the steps to our apartment building. He’s wild, and who knows what kind of diseases he’s harboring. Besides, bunnies are expensive and an awful lot of work.” 

Alfred straightens out and looks into the distance, striking a dramatic pose. “But I’m the hero, and I save people! And cute little bunnies.” 

Arthur sighs. “Our apartment doesn’t have enough room for an animal like that. It needs to run around, and we’ll have to buy a hutch for it, and food and bedding and…” He trails off because he knows Alfred isn’t listening. 

Instead, Alfred’s picked up the tiny rabbit and he’s cradling it in his arms. “Look at how cute it is, Artie.” 

Arthur sighs. There are dozens of reasons why this is a bad idea, sure, but he has a feeling that they’re going to keep the animal. He blames Alfred for being too damn cute. “Fine. We can keep it.”

“Yes!” Alfred exclaims, and he has to forcibly restrain himself from fist pumping. After all, there’s a bunny in his hands. 

“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” 

Not five minutes later, they’re all settled in the apartment. 

Alfred places the bunny in an old shoebox lined with a small towel (their only good decorative one that they use when company’s over is now ruined, much to Arthur’s chagrin). He fills a shot glass with half and half and puts it in the box next to the bunny. The bunny settles itself in the corner weakly, and after a hell of a lot of coos, Alfred takes to petting it gently.

Arthur watches all this fondly from his armchair, still not completely convinced about the whole bunny thing. But Alfred’s so terribly cute with animals. So he mentally curses himself as he scrolls through Amazon, searching for a rabbit hutch. 

“What do bunnies eat?” Alfred inquires.

“Vegetables. Check the fridge.” 

He leaves the sitting room and returns a minute later, arms laden with all the vegetables and herbs they own. They don’t even fit into the box, so Alfred breaks them all into little pieces and sets them down in little piles in front of the bunny. 

“I don’t think he’s going to eat an onion.” Arthur sighs. 

Alfred looks up. “How do you know? Are you a bunny?” 

Figuring it’s better to leave Alfred to do things by himself, Arthur returns to his laptop. It takes hours, several in-depth conversations with Alfred, multiple phone calls to chicken-owning friends, and over a hundred dollars, but they end up ordering a rabbit coup. Once the task is finished, Arthur closes the laptop and has to drag Alfred into their bed. It’s already past midnight. There’s work in the morning, he can’t spend all night with this bunny. 

-.-.-

Arthur groans as the alarm clock blares the next morning. He blindly feels around for the warmth of his boyfriend, who, as usual, has stolen all the covers from him. Alfred doesn’t even need blankets – he’s like an eternal furnace – and yet this happens every morning. However, all Arthur finds is cold, empty bed.

As it turns out, Alfred is already awake, tending to the bunny. Arthur glares at him while he stumbles into the kitchen to make coffee. “It’s cold without you there.” He grumbles. 

“I made you tea, it’s on the counter.” Alfred shouts into the other room.

“I love you.” Arthur calls back as he downs the entire cup in little more than one gulp. 

Alfred smiles and momentarily leaves the bunny to say good morning to Arthur. Arthur’s eyes are just slits, only open enough to locate the mug of tea waiting for him on the counter. “Good morning,” Alfred greets as Arthur wraps his arms around the taller man’s torso. 

“You’re up early.” Arthur says through a yawn. 

Alfred nods. “Couldn’t sleep knowing the bunny was here.”

“How is it?” Arthur asks. Honestly, he doubted it would survive the night. But maybe it’ll live a full life. 

“Tony’s doing great!” Alfred exclaims. 

A pause. “You named our rabbit Tony?” 

“Well, yeah! What else was I supposed to name him?”

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

About an hour later, Arthur is ready to leave for work, but Alfred hasn’t moved from the little bunny. Normally, Alfred is ready far before him (though that’s probably because Alfred rushes through everything). They leave together, being that they work at two different buildings in the same block. But today, Alfred’s still wearing the t-shirt and shorts he fell asleep in, wrapped in a blanket and stroking the rabbit.

“Are you coming or not?” 

Alfred shakes his head. “Called in sick. Someone has to take care of Tony!”

“Oh. Well, goodbye, then.” 

“Bye, Artie! Have fun at work!” 

Arthur feels like pointing out just how very not fun work is, but decides against it and closes the door. 

The walk to work seems to take even longer than it usually does. This bunny seems to have stolen all of Alfred’s attention away from Arthur, who is more than a little bitter about this turn of events. But Alfred can’t avoid work forever, right? This is surely just a one-time thing. Arthur sighs to himself as he sits down in his desk. The stack of paperwork next to his computer assures him that this will be an extremely long day.

There are some calls that Arthur expects to get at work. Like calls from customers, his boss telling him what work needs to be done, and that daily check-in from his boyfriend during Alfred’s break. But Arthur does not expect the call he gets today.

The caller ID reads ‘Alfred F. Jones’, so he picks up the phone with more enthusiasm than usual. “Hello?”

The other line is suspiciously silent. Uncharacteristically silent for someone like Alfred. 

“Alfred?”

No response.

“Alfred, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Arthur can feel his pulse beginning to quicken with worry, but he can’t help himself. He’s always worried quite a lot.

“Can you come home?” Alfred asks. His voice is thick with something that Arthur figures must be tears. 

“What’s wrong?”

The other line goes silent again for a moment. “Just come home. Please.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll be home soon.” 

Arthur doesn’t even pay attention to what he throws in his briefcase before he leaves his office. He doesn’t take home any paperwork, figuring he’ll just deal with it tomorrow, no big deal. A few people look up as he flies out, asking him questions about his mental state, but he ignores them.

He even considers taking the bus home instead of walking the half hour trip home, but decides against it. The bus would cost extra money and make more stops than just plain walking. Arthur ends up sprinting the entire way home, making it there in a bit more than fifteen minutes. His holds his phone in his hand in case he needs to call the police or something and knocks on the door.

“Alfred? Are you in there?”

The only response he receives is eerie silence. As if Arthur wasn’t worried enough already.

“Alfred, I’m coming in!”

He unlocks and throws the door open with fumbling hands. Alfred is sitting in the same position he was when Arthur left this morning, with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His shoulders are shaking gently.

“Alfred? Alfred, what’s wrong?” Within seconds, Arthur’s at Alfred’s side, wiping his tears away. 

“Tony… Tony’s dead.” Alfred chokes out, burying his head in his hands.

Arthur’s first thought is something along the lines of I knew it, though he would never say such a thing to Alfred. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“He was perfectly fine until maybe an hour ago, when he just… kind of stopped moving? And – and I knew something was wrong, so I was holding him and dropping some water into his mouth with the old eyedropper, but he wasn’t drinking anything, so I gave up. And then he just – just stopped breathing.” 

Arthur rubs Alfred’s back somewhat awkwardly, as he’s never been quite good at these situations. “Well, we found him out in the cold at the bottom of our stairway, and he was a wild rabbit. It’s kind of obvious that he was hurt or sick or something. But you tried your best, I know you did.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead.”

“No.” Yes, he really isn’t the ideal person when it comes to comforting others. All Arthur can think about is how they just bought that hutch for hundreds of dollars and now they don’t have a bunny to put it in.

“I was so happy that we finally had a pet, and now –” Alfred’s blubbering breaks his own sentence off.

Arthur considers. “Well, we did order that hutch…” 

That’s all it takes for Alfred’s eyes to light up with a tiny glimmer of hope. “Can we get a bunny?” 

He sighs. “Get your shoes on and we’ll go look at what they have in the pet store.”

Alfred’s whoops of joy can probably be heard in Antarctica.


End file.
